Ultrasonic flaw detecting and recording system



March 16, 1954 Filed Sept. 17, 1951 D. B. CAPLES ET AL ULTRASONIC FLAW DETECTING AND RECORDING SYSTEM 5 Sheets-Sheet l March 16, 1954 D. B. cAPLEs ET AL 2,672,392

ULTRASONIC FLAW DETECTING AND RECORDING SYSTEM Filed Sept. 17, 1951 l 3 Sheets-Sheet 2 ZIA Signals 'Prom /ZI A Tronsmrl'fer 2/3 zz Q b C 22 B Rech'ed Signals [Y d e R/ 'L opuf a? Receiver? 2 C Sgnchron'lzng Puls h MA imrw TrunsrrrHer 50 50A D OUTPUT o? Dawg -1 1 27 blade March 16, 1954 D. B. CAPLE ET AL 2,672,392

uLTRAsoNIc FLAw DETECTING AND RECORDING SYSTEM Filed sept. 17, 1951 3 Sheets-Sheet 5 gsi-age To Uni? 9 Amplifier To Un'' 8 To TransmHer I lnvenJrors y D. B. Copies Thw Mrornelj Patented Mar. 16, 1954 UNITED STATES PATENT OFFICE ULTRASONIC FLAW DETECTING AND RECORDING SYSTEM Ware Application September 17, 1951, Serial No. 246,896

6 Claims. l

This invention pertains to recording methods and systems, and relates more particularly to a method and a system for accurately recording the difference in time between successive events, such, for example, as the arrival to a recorder of successive signals or pulses.

In order to simplify the following exposition, this invention will be described and illustrated in regard to its application in ultrasonic testing methods, for which it is especially well adapted. it being well understood, however, that it is in no way limited thereto, but may be used for the purpose of recording phenomena or events of other and different types, as will be clear to those familiar` with the art from the description hereinbelow.

It has been `hitherto known to use nondestructive ultrasonic testing methods wherein a pulse is transmitted through the body or medium under test, and informationas to the thickness or shape of said body, or the presence of any iiaws therein, is obtained from a study of properly received reflections of the transmitted pulse.

Considerable difficulties have been encountered in recording the results of ultrasonic testing. Devices of the oscilloscope type give only temporary, non-permanent images. Oscillograph records usually require a time delay for purposes of photographic development. Pen and chart recorders have often too slow a reaction and lack the desired accuracy, especially when measuring intervals between high frequency effects.

It is therefore an object of this invention to provide a method permitting to form electrically a permanent and accurate record of the time spacing between rapidly succeeding events or pulses.

It is also an object of this invention to provide a method and a system for measuring the frequency of rapidly following events or pulses, expressing said frequency as a voltage rising at a rate proportional to said frequency, converting said rising voltage to a second voltage having an amplitude value proportional to said rate of rise, and maintaining said voltage amplitude for a period of time sufficient to permit said voltage to actuate a recorder when applied to the input of said recorder.

These and other objects of the present invention will be understood from the following description taken with reference to the attached drawings, wherein Fig. 1 is a block diagram of the present system.

Fig. 2 isla diagram of the pulse or wave shapes obtaining at the various units of the present system.

Fig. 3 is a schematic circuit of the shaping and limiting amplifier unit 8 of Fig. 1.

Fig. 4 is a schematic circuit of the staircase integrator unit 9 of Fig. 1.

Fig. 5 is a schematic circuit of the delay multivibrator unit I4 of Fig. 1.

Fig. 6 is a schematic circuit of the smoothing and differentiating amplifier unit |0 of Fig. 1.

Fig. '7 is a schematic circuit of the stretcher units and l2 of Fig. 1.

Referring to Fig. 1, pulses generated by a trans mitter are applied, by means of a transducer 2, such as a piezo-electric crystal, to a body under test 3, said body having a first or front surface 4 and a second or rear surface 5. The body 3 may be in direct Contact with the transducer 2 or may be separated therefrom by a coupling medium 6 such as water, oil, etc. The transmitter I, transducer 2 and the nature of the pulses applied thereby to the body 3 may be, for the purposes of this description, of the type disclosed in U. S. Letters Patent Nos. 2,280,226 and 2,398,701, said pulses or signals being shown at 2| on line A in Fig. 2 of the present drawings.

The transducer 2 may serve both to transmit the pulses 2| to the body 3 and to receive the reflected pulses or signals therefrom, although, if desired, a special receiver, either separate or combined therewith, as diagrammatically shown at I8, may be used for this last purpose. The received signals, for example, pulses reflected from the front and rear surfaces 4 and 5 of body 3, are conveyed to the receiver, amplifier and rectier unit 1, which receives or detects, ampliiies` and recties said pulses in a manner well known in the art.

The voltage pattern appearing at the output of unit 1, is shown on line B in Fig. 2. The pulse 2|, transmitted by the transducer, appears," afterrectification, as a signal 22 and the pulse energy reflected from the front surface 4 of the body 3 appears as a signal 23a. The Spacing 24 between pulses 22 and 23a is thus the time required for the ultrasonic pulse to travel through the liquid medium 6 to the front surface 4 of the body 3 and back to the transducer 2. The term ultrasonic is applied to the pulse 2| as consisting of a train of vibrations of high frequency, such as from kilocycles to 20 megacycles per second, individual groups or trains of pulses 2| being in turn generated by the transmitter at a suitable frequency such as from 100 to 10,000 trains of pulses per second. y

Part of the energy of pulse 2| is not reflected toward the transducer from the front surface 4, but penetrates the body 3 and is then reected from the rear surface 5, resulting after passage through the unit 1, in the rectified pulse 23h. Part of the pulse energy of 2317, traveling toward the transducer, is again reflected at the front surface 4 back into the body 3, and then back l again towards the transducer at the rear surface 5 to produce a pulse 23o, etc., until these pulses gradually die out to a value too small to be significant.

The spacing between the fronts of the adjacent pulses 23a, 23h, 23o, etc., thus represents the round trip time between the two faces 4 and` 5 of the body 3, and is therefore directly proportional to the ultrasonic path length through the body or to the thickness of said body. If the body 3 has a flaw capable of reflecting a pulse of ultrasonic vibrations or waves, the voltage pattern at f the output of unit 1y will still be as` shown. except that the spacing 25 between adjacent pulses 23a, 23h, 23o, etc., will be that corresponding to the pulse round trip travel time from the surface 4 to said naw and back. The same change of pattern spacing will obviously occur if the pulses are sent through a portion of the body 3 having a decreased thickness. If no coupling medium 6 is used', the transmitted pulse 22 and the first reflectedpulse 23a are merged into one with regard to the following reflected pulses 23h, 23o, 23d, etc.

It is thus the time or spacing value 25, or a change therein, that contains the intelligence it is desired to indicate or record. Since, however, the value of 25, under ordinary testing conditions i's very small, and a direct measurement and recording thereof might therefore entail considerable difficulty and result in considerable error, it is preferred, according to the present invention, to determine said valueby raising a voltage in a series of steps of equal magnitude, said steps corresponding to the reflected pulses, and converting the stepwise voltage thus obtained to a voltage smoothly rising with a uniform slope. This slope, which may be readily determined by electronically differentiating the voltage rise with regardl to its duration time, is in such case directly proportional to the number of pulses reflected per unit time or inversely proportional to the thickness of the body under test.

Asz stated above, and with reference to Figs. 1 and 2, the pulses received by the unit 1 appear, after suitable amplification and rectification therein, in the shape shown on line b. These pulses are Athen fed tothe shaping and limiting amplifier unit 8. The essential elements of a unit of this type suitable for the purposes of this invention are diagrammatically shown in Fig. 3 as consisting of a limiting or trigger section 30, ccmprising pentodes. 3l and 32, andr a, shaping amplier section 33. comprisingA a pentode 34 vhaving a damping diode 35, such for example asy a germanium diode, connected to the plate circuit thereof. The unitf may be connected to the next unit 8 through a conventional two-stage amplifier 33. `The effectk of the shaping section 33 is to` give thel impulses received by the unit 8 equal widths, and that' of the limiting or trigger section is to give all pulses above a certain predetermined minimum `an equal amplitude and rise time while entirely suppressing pulses below said. predetermined minimum amplitude, with the result that the pulses 22 and 23 (a, b, c, d, e) applied to theinput of unit 3 are transformed therein into pulses such as shown at '21 '28 on line 4 E. The pulses 21 and 28 are delivered by the two stage amplifier 36 to the input of the staircase integrator unit 9 connected thereto.

The staircase integrator 9 diagrammatically shown in Fig. 4, isa cathodefollowercircuit connected tothe output of unit 8 through a tube 31. a condenser 39 of relatively very small capacity and parallel diode tubes 42 and 42a. The essential element of the integrator is the grounded storage condenser 38 of relatively large capacity, such as from l0 to 100 times the capacity of condenser 38; Pulses 28, fed to the integrator circuit through the condenser 39, cause the voltage across the storage condenser 38 to rise ina series of equal steps, each of said steps corresponding to one of the pulses' 28, as shown at 40 on line F. The rate of voltage rise across the storage condenser 38 is thus directly proportional to the frequency of said pulses or inversely proportional to the thickness of the body under test.

In `orcler that the risek of the staircase-voltage may alwaysy start from the same reference point or level, and to eliminate the effect of the transmitted pulse 22,' the storage condenser 38 is dischargedby the action of transmitted or synchronizing pulses during each repetition period, that is during a period corresponding to the spacing between two consecutive pulses 21 and ZIA, line A or 22 and 22A on line B.

To obtain this desired recycling discharge signal, a synchronizing pulse produced by the transmitter I is brought therefrom to a delay multivibrator circuit I4. This pulse is shown at 4I on line C as slightly leading the transmitted pulse 2I. An example of a suitable delay multivibrator circuit is diagrammatically shown in Fig. 5 as connected to the transmitter I through a condenser 44. The delay multivibrator circuit of Fig. 5 is adjusted to a mode of operation wherein the tube 41A is normally on, or passing current, whilethe tube 45` is off. By a proper selection of the values of a condenser 48 and a resistance 49 in the circuit linking the plate of the tube 45 to the grid of tube 41, the arrival of a synchronizingpulse 4I may be made to trigger the delay multivibrator circuit to a temporary state of operation during which the tube `becomes conductive while tube 41 is not, which produces a square wave in the output of the delay multivibratoi circuit, as shown at 50 on line D. The duration of the temporary state producing the wave 50 can be easily regulated by suitably adjusting the values of the constants 48 `and 48. and is designed to terminate before the arrival of the first `echo pulse 28, as canbe seen 'from lines D and E.

The square wave output of the delay multi-- vibrator I4 is applied as a positive bias tothe gridl of `tube 43 ofthe integrator circuit 8, `causing it to become conductive for the. duration of the square wave, thus shorting the storage condenser 38, and permitting it to discharge, whereby the system isreturned to its no signal condition, so that no-fstepwise rise of voltage is per-- mitted to take place during the period of application of the square wave 50, which` eliminates the transmitted pulse 22 or 21 from the followingl circuits.v

The output of the staircase integrator circuit 8 is fed to the smoothing vand differentiatingv unit I0, diagrammaticallyshown in 6, where the stepwisely ,rising or staircase voltage 43 .is` smoothed or converted to a linearly changing: voltage having; a proper slopaas :shown at 52 on Imc Q.. by:- mam comprising; vctirmlie'tiallower tube 55, a diodeV 56 and a pentode 51 having a condenser 58 between its grid and plate circuits. `The resulting smoothly changing voltage is then electronically differentiated by means of a circuit comprising essentially the pentode 51, a high resistance 59 and an inductance 62, to give an output voltage cl, shown on line H, which is directly proportional to the slope of the line 52 land inversely proportional to the thickness ofthe body under test. The output current of unit I 0 is delivered, preferably through an ampliner-inverter 64, to the unit II.

VSince the voltage 54 appears at the output of the diferentiator unit l0 only for the duration of the echo pattern, that is, only during the period when the group of pulses 28, corresponding to the reflected pulses 23, is passing through the system, and since that period may be of extremely small duration, such as 40 microseconds, `it is desirable that the voltage 54 be stretched or maintained by the system for most ofthe repetition period, so that a voltage having a duration sufficient for actuating a recorder may be obtained.

In order to accomplish this result, the output of the differentiator unit I0 is fed to a first and a second stretcher stages or units II and I2, as diagrammatically illustrated in Fig. 7.

This circuit is essentially a cathode follower circuit comprising a condenser in the cathode circuitof aviirst stretcher tube 1I, and a condenser `13, having a high resistance in parallel therewith in the cathode circuit of a second stretcher tube 16. The condenser 16 becomes charged to the maximum voltage supplied by '7 the output of unit I0. As condenser 10 has no discharge path, its voltage is maintained at the same level in time, or stretched, as shown at 84, line I. Each repetition period, condenser 10 must be discharged and recharged in order that the output voltage supplied to the recorder may follow the'variations of thickness of the object under test. To discharge this condenser by shorting itfanother recycling discharge tube 18 is operated from the delay multivibrator I4,

whereby the stretcher condenser 10 is brought to zero voltage, as shown at 85, line I, every time that a synchronizing pulse 4I causes the delay multivibrator to produce a pulse 50. The stretcher condenser 10 remains discharged until the signal 52 is again received from the differentiator I0. The time during which the output of stretcher Ii is zero should preferably be a small fraction, such for example as one-tenth of the repetition period. Except for the discharge time, the output of stretcher II is the desired voltage to be reported. To eliminate errors due to the voltage drop during the discharge period, a second stretcher 16 is used. A condenser 13, carried in the cathode circuit of the second stretcher tube 16 of this circuit is also charged to the peak voltage of the output of unit I0, but in this case a resistor 15 is connected across the condenser to provide a leakage path with a high time constant. Since the output of tube 1I is the input to tube 16, the charge on the condenser 13 will be maintained constant for most of the repetition period as shown on line J. During the period when the condenser 1I) is being discharged to zero voltage, condenser 13 will discharge through its parallel resistor 15. As the time constant for this discharge is made large compared to the discharged period of condenser 10, only a small change of voltage will occur in the output of the stretchercircuit I2 during this period, as shown at 86 -on line J.

It has been found practical to make the timeconstant of the resistor-condenser circuit of circuit I2 about equal to one repetition period of the system. The output voltage of the stretcher circuit I2 will then follow voltage decreases of thestretcher circuit with sufficient rapidity for use with most recorders, and will show only a small change during the short discharge period 86. The output of the stretcher may be connected to the input of any suitable recorder, preferably through a cathode follower circuit to provide a low impedance output for the recorder.

It will thus be seen that the present invention is directed to a method whereby suitably shaped electric power capable of actuating a recorder can be produced by the closely spaced repetitive events or pulses which it is desired to record. It will also be seen that the present invention embraces a system embodying a combination of elements necessary for carrying out said method, it beingv understood, Ihowever, that the invention is in no way limited or bound to the particular elements, units or circuits described or illustrated hereinabove by way of examples, since various modifications or substitutions of said circuits may be eiected byl those familiar with the art of -electronics without departing from the spirit of the present invention.

We claim as our invention:

1. In a method for recording a series of repetitive events closely following each other, the steps of producing a series of electrical pulses correspending to said events, causing a potential to rise in a series of steps each corresponding to one of said pulses, converting said stepwisely rising potential to one rising substantially in a straight line, determining the slope of said line, producing a voltage having an amplitude proportional to the slope of said line, and recording said last voltage.

2. In amethod for recording a series of events closely following each other at equal intervals, the steps of producing a series of electrical pulses corresponding to said events, amplifying said pulses to an equal amplitude, causing a potential to rise in a series of steps each corresponding to one of said pulses, converting said stepwisely rising voltage to one rising substantially in a straight line, determining the slope of said line, producing a voltage having an amplitude proportional to the slope of said line, and recording said last voltage.

3. In a method for determining the spacing between two adjacent events in a series of events rapidly following each other at equal intervals, the steps of producing throughout a predeter' mined time period a series of electrical pulses corresponding to said events, amplifying said pulses to an equal amplitude, causing a voltage to rise in a series of steps each corresponding to one of said pulses, converting said stepwisely rising voltage to one rising substantially in a straight line, electrically diilerentiating said voltage with regard to time to obtain the slope of said line, producing a voltage having an amplitude proportional to the slope of said line, and recording said last voltage.

4. In a method for recording the spacing be-v tween two successive reflections of a transmitted pulse, the steps of transmitting a pulse at equal relatively long intervals into a medium having at least a rst and a second reflecting surfaces,

receiving .a train i'of equally ispaced gipulsosirolilected from said first and secondsurfaceammpli'iying said :re'flected ipulses'lto ian 'equalsamplitude i'throughoutifapredetermined relativclyrjshort time -lperiod occurring wholly within fthe i'nter- *val lbetween two transmitted Vzpulses, causing` @a voltage .ito risein'ia series of `:steps Peach corresponding 5to one'otsa'id yreflectedi-pulaes,convertlng said stepwisely'frising voltage 'to .ione-rising substantially in Jfaf straight line, L electrically idliferentiating said voltage with regard to time ito obtain the slope .of said-line `producing falvoltage having man `amplitude 'proportional to ithe :fslope .of said 'iline. maintaining said voltageffduringa cuit :comprising potential "storage .means, :means ini-'said f second `circuit 1f or `causing fthe .'pulses fireceived thereby from/the rst circuit to raiseithe potentialuof said potential'storage means'finrawseries of stepslfcorrespondingitosaidpulses,fafthird circuit :connected ito :the output of fthexsecond circuit, means in said third -circuit Afforconvert ing the stepwisely .rising voltage-:output iol the second v'circuit .to ta voltage rising .substantially in :a straight'line and "for producing a `voltage having w-an yamplitude proportional ,to the :slope of saidifstraight eline, and a recorder v'connected .to the `outputzoffsaidzthirdfcircuit.

- :6. In kcombinationf-witha transmitter for sending a :transmitted pulse vthrough a medium .having at least a rilrst and ga dsecond `reiiectin .surfaces, la system for recording `the Ispacing `between @two r'reections Yof ,said transmitted pulse, comprising a receiver circuit for .receiving .ia traina/of Iiemmally spaced pulses reflected respec- 8, tixelyfiromisaidmrstiandvsecondi surtacesionitne arrivalfthereto of a'transmitted;pu1se,1fafshaping amplifier fcircuitwconnected to therloutput of i'saiti vreceiver@circuit fior `armilifx'ling isaid irelledteld wisely rising potential `ofthe. integrator ichoult tofa@voltagerisingisubstantiallyiinsa.'straightigliue. means :for differentiating vsaid 'voltage regard 'to time v'to fobtain the Lslope of said dine, and fmeans for Aproducing :a voltagefhaving'i-an amplitude proportional -to :said slope, @stretcher circuit means connected to the output rdf :the

diferentiator :circuit for Ainaintaining tsaid vri/St n voltage yat a constant value during :aqmajor ipoftion `of 'the repetition icycle occurring 'betwoen two transmitted pulses, :delay multivibrator :circuit lhaving 4its input' connected to the output of the transmitter and :its @output lconnected "in parallel to ,said integrator fcircuit and sam stretcher Acircuit for `periodically fdecreasing .the output voltage -of vsaid integrator f circuit, -xandm recorder connected to :the ,outputoff-said stretcher circuit.

`DONALD BICALPLES. RICHARD 'B. fWIL-OUGHB-Y. EPAULL. DATT.

References Cited `in :the `fille' of this Apatent U'NI'I'ED "STATES PATENTS Number vName Date A2,496,338 fBarton, fJr. ..\Feb. il, 1:1850 

